The Wit and Wisdom of Ted Kennedy - Bill Adler [30]
president, as quoted in Newsweek, July 13, 1987
Upon hearing his father, Joseph Kennedy, Sr., the newly appointed U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain, repeatedly addressed as “Your Excellency,” then-six-year-old Teddy Kennedy asked:
“Is that your new name, Daddy?”
—As reported in The Daily Mail,
March 17, 1938
PERSONAL REFLECTIONS
GROWING UP KENNEDY MEANS GROWING UP IN AN atmosphere of high achievement, expectation of public service, and unquestioning devotion to family, faith, and country. Both parents made these demands of their children, but the patriarch of the family, Joseph P. Kennedy, had another expectation that he made explicit: Kennedys do not complain. They never whine. “There’s no crying in this house,” he decreed.
All nine of his children were taught this lesson but those who survived to bring up their own families came to break away from this stoic creed. Suffering in silence, as many can testify, can be damaging to the soul. There’s something to be said for finding ways to acknowledge the hurts and losses of life and to reflect on the meaning of painful events, and then share those reflections with those whose love and understanding can be counted on. It’s not weakness to seek out a trusted soul under these circumstance; on the contrary, it can be a great source of strength.
But that’s not the way Ted Kennedy had been brought up to think, and so, as he suffered loss after loss—with each sibling’s early death, with his son Teddy, Jr.’s battle with cancer, and throughout so many other tragedies and sorrows—he simply pushed himself on, working more, attending more events, and yes, drinking too much and partying too hard. His first marriage broke down as a result. It was not until he met the woman who would become his second wife—Victoria Reggie—that he found a way to get off that dangerous road. She introduced him to the value of looking honestly at oneself, of grappling with his own painful emotions. She opened him up to himself.
We are the beneficiaries of this change in his outlook, which enabled him to put down on paper so many beautiful and deeply moving thoughts that would otherwise be forever lost. The writings that came out of the final year of his life—particularly his posthumously published memoir, True Compass”give us passages stunning in their depth of feeling, all the more so for the often lyrical and even haunting quality of the prose. In the end he reveals himself to be a writer of great insight into his own soul, and he should be remembered for that, as much as for any of his grand orations before entranced crowds.
Asked by the Jonathan Karp, the publisher of his 2009 memoir True Compass, how he dealt with all the loss in his life, Senator Kennedy answered:
I think the reason I have been so restless in my life is that I have been trying to stay ahead of the darkness, to just keep moving to stay ahead of the despair.
—As quoted by Jonathan Karp in
The Washington Post, September 13, 2009
I recognize my own shortcomings—the faults in the conduct of my private life. I realize that I alone am responsible for them, and I am the one who must confront them. I believe that each of us as individuals must not only struggle to make a better world, but to make ourselves better, too.
—Speech to his constituents,
Oct. 25, 1991
Sailing on Mya [his boat] with Vicki at my side and my dogs, Splash and Sunny, at my feet. And, of course, a Democrat in the White House and regaining our majority in the Senate.
—Response to May 2006 Vanity Fair interview
question, “What is your idea of perfect happiness?”
I do not seek to escape responsibility for my actions by placing the blame either on the physical and emotional trauma brought on by the accident, or on anyone else. I regard as indefensible the fact that I did not report the accident to the police immediately.
—Public statement after the
Chappaquiddick accident,
July 25, 1969
That night on Chappaquiddick Island ended in a horrible tragedy that haunts me every day of my life. I had suffered sudden and